ABSTRACT
This chapter offers Wayne Freedman's encouragement and wisdom about the path to being a reporter, a broadcaster, an editor or a media professional. Freedman's school announced the formation of a journalism class for the student newspaper. At 14 years old, journalism already felt like a calling and, in its illusory reality, Freedman convinced himself that the calling needed him. Such feelings of misguided superiority run rampant among journalists. Add to that a natural curiosity, an ability to get people to talk, a visual mind, and one have the makings of a television news reporter. Ten months later and two years out of school, KRON-TV hired Freedman in San Francisco. Freedman began with general assignment reporting, did investigative, technology and medical beats, and developed a specialty in long-form features, which remain his first love.
